MLSD Learning Services Center gets new landmark

MOSES LAKE — The entrance to the Moses Lake School District Learning Services Center is now identifiable by a stack of books. Okay, not actual books, but a book sculpture constructed by students at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.

“It’s pretty cool-looking, isn’t it?” former MLSD Board Member Vickey Melcher said.

The metal statue was installed Monday afternoon while an interested audience of MLSD personnel watched. A crew from Miers Construction, Moses Lake, moved the sculpture into place.

Melcher said the project started when the district offices moved from their former location on Ivy Street.

The sculpture depicts two books leaning against each other and sitting on a third book. Former MLSD administrator Dave Balcom said the design was a collaboration between skills center students, instructors and former MLSD superintendent Josh Meek.

“We commissioned it, and then COVID hit,” Melcher said.

That put a delay in getting the sculpture completed.

“The timeline was designed to be much quicker,” Balcom said. “No pun, but those books got put on the shelf.”

The delays meant different classes worked on the project over the space of a couple of years.

“A series of classes, really,” Balcom said.

Some of the students who originally worked on the project had graduated by the time it was finished, Melcher said.

Even with the delays, skills center students kept working on the project, Balcom said.

“They never lost that focus,” he said. “Their perseverance is pretty cool.”